I met Andy & Breena Holt at last year’s ARC Annual Conference inToledo. Andy came with a bit of fanfare from some of the Toledo leaders; he won the preaching award at Gordon Conwell Seminary in Boston, and so I was eager to meet this young buck and his wife.  They were also in preparations for the planting of the newest ARC Church in Columbus, OH.  It’s called Ember Church.  I’ve attended Ember and was deeply impressed by the substantial quality of their worship.  I didn’t get to hear Andy preach, because that particular Sunday he was in the nursery.  That was also impressive to me. Since that time, I’ve met with Andy and have followed his blog (“The Sometimes Preacher“) with regularity. Andy is a remarkable communicator, a very good preacher (I’ve heard him now a few times on his podcast) and Breena attests that he is a very good husband and father.

I’m very glad to introduce Andy to you – he will also be sharing a workshop at our conference coming up in April (“Preaching as Discipleship”).  Andy and Breena also represent one of the commitments we made four years ago – to pay attention to raising up young leaders in the ARC. By the way, Breena will also be sharing a workshop at the conference (“Women and Friendships”). So with no further ado, here’s Andy Holt on “The Curious Way God Made Ember Church Possible”.

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This is a story I’ve been meaning to write for awhile. It’s the story of how God used a blog (not mine) to make Ember Church a reality. Enjoy!

One of the best experiences I had while working at Heritage happened the weekend before Lent, 2010. We usually brought in a big-time guest speaker the weekend before Lent, and this year was no different, because we invited Scot McKnight to come speak to us about Mary. The responsibility fell to me to pick Scot and his wife Kris up from the airport, escort them to the hotel, and to and from church for the weekend. They could not have been nicer, more down-to-earth people; and Breena and I got to share lunch and dinner with them! (Thanks, Heritage!)

Scot has a very popular blog called the Jesus Creed, on which he (and others) makes many thought provoking posts every day. There is usually good, civil discussion in the comment threads. I enjoyed taking part in the discussions for the better part of 2010, and Scot was even gracious enough to post several of my book reviews there.

When I moved into full time church planting in early 2011, I stopped commenting at the Jesus Creed, but was still an active reader. One day, in the Spring if I remember correctly, Scot posted about a book he recommended to me over dinner, Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh. It is an excellent book and, as an introvert, I resonated with so much of what he wrote. (You can read my review of the book here.) I left a brief comment on Scot’s post about the book, saying something to the effect of, “You recommended this book to me when you were in Columbus, and I really enjoyed it!”

Later that day I got a comment on my own blog from someone going by the handle Pastor Mark. My first thought was, “Is Mark Driscoll commenting on my blog? Does he want to fight me?” As it turns out, it was Mark Farmer, a pastor in Columbus and fellow frequenter of the Jesus Creed blog. He contacted me because he had read my mention of Scot’s trip to Columbus, and thought it would be great to get together to chat. I happily agreed, thinking this was a great chance to meet another pastor in the area. I am, after all, the world’s worst networker, so whenever I get an opportunity to network with other pastors, I jump at it.

This is where things get God-level interesting. Mark and I both live in Westerville. In fact, we live in the same neighborhood. What is more, he pastors the church that is about a 2 minute drive from my house! We met up at Panera and had a wonderful conversation. He was a missionary and church-planter in France for a long time, and I was eager to hear his stories of ministry in what I perceived to be a difficult environment.

Meanwhile, Ember was still in the planning stages, but the summer was fast approaching, and that meant the fall, and our launch, was I had been against that from the beginning because I thought people would then perceive us as Junior Church, or Extra Church. In our culture, you go to church on Sunday morning, and everything else is extra credit. Fighting the culture over Jesus would be hard enough; I didn’t want to have to fight the culture over what time you go to church, too.  right around the corner. I had been looking into renting the local elementary school for our Sunday morning services, but the cost, along with the cost of storage, audio/visual equipment, and time to set-up and tear-down seemed prohibitive. We had some money, but not enough to get us off the ground in an elementary gymnasium.

Jesus said “Make disciples of all nations… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” But what is the “make-up” of a disciple, a follower of Jesus?

A disciple is a believer who is shaped by three  priorities:

1.  WORSHIP - submitting to and following God like Jesus
2.  COMMUNITY - loving and serving the people of God like Jesus
3.  OUTREACH - connecting to God’s broken world like Jesus

Over the next 3 years, the Alliancefor Renewal Churches (ARC) and Whitewater Ministries will be hosting mini-conferences on these Christ-priorities and invite you to engage them with us in this first conference on the topic of WORSHIP!

WHEN: 
Friday – Saturday, February 3^rd and 4^th, 2012

WHERE:
Tampa Covenant Church, 13320 Lake Magdalene Blvd., Tampa, FL 33618, (813) 968-2979
(For driving directions, please visit the church site: www.tampacovenantchurch.org)

COST: 
$30.00 (includes dinner on Friday and a continental breakfast on Saturday)

REGISTER HERE

LODGING:

Holiday Inn Express
9402 Corporate Lake Drive, Tampa, Florida 33634
(813) 885-3700
(Call the front desk and let them know you are with Tampa Covenant Church to get the $119.00 rate)

Low-Cost Housing: Tampa Bay Baptist Conference Center
$39.00 private room (one person) or $28.50 per person shared (two in a room)
Please call Tampa Covenant Church to reserve a room (space is limited)

(813) 968-2979 (ask for Traci LaRussa)

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
The Work of Making Disciples, Part I: The Habit of Worship

Friday, February 3^rd
6:00 p.m. – 7:00 pm – Dinner

7:00 pm – Welcome

7:15 – 8:30 pm – Plenary Talk: Gospel Conversion

8:30 – 9:30 pm – Workshops:
1. Stewarding Finances
2. Corporate Worship
3. The New Covenant Meal
4. Family Worship Practices
5. Ongoing Transformation/Sanctification

Saturday, February 4^th
8:00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast

8:30 – 9:30 am – Plenary Talk: The Habit of Hearing the Word

9:45 – 10:45 am – Workshops (see list above)

11:00 – 12:00 pm – Plenary Talk: The Habit of Prayer and Hearing the Spirit

PLENARY SPEAKERS:

Ned Berube
Ned is the president of the Alliance for Renewal Churches and the founder of Whitewater Ministries. He has planted 2 churches and taught in 3 Bible/Leadership schools over his 36 years in ministry. Presently he helps to provide leadership in Mission St. Paul, a coordinated effort of many churches andleaders in St Paul who share a vision for incarnational unity in the city. Ned has been married to Susan for 40 years and together they have somehow acquired 6 children, 2 sons-in-law, a daughter-in-law and 5 grandchildren. They really like them all!

Eric Meyer
Celebrating his twenty-seventh year of ministry in Tampa, Eric Meyer serves as senior pastor of Tampa Covenant Church. He currently sits on the board of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, and is also on the board of the Conservatory for the Arts at Tampa Bay. His “hero” is Charles Spurgeon, a minister who combined Reformed Theology with a love for people and a passion to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Eric and Arden have been married since 1983 and have three children.

Lou Kaloger
Hailing from beautiful Cleveland, Ohio, Lou Kaloger has served as a teaching elder at Tampa Covenant Church since 1987 and as a pastor since 2000. Lou holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Bowling Green State University and a Master of Arts in Biblical Studies from Reformed Theological Seminary. In addition to his responsibilities at TCC, Lou teaches a course on the history and theology of religious imagery at Trinity College of Florida. He also serves on the board of directors for the Conservatory for the Arts at Tampa Bay and the Hillsborough County Children’s Services Volunteer League. Lou and Angela have been married since 1978. They have three wonderful daughters, a great son-in-law, and two stinkin’ cute granddaughters.

AREA ATTRACTIONS:

Busch Gardens
www.buschgardens.com

Lowry Park Zoo
www.lowryparkzoo.com

The Florida Aquarium
www.flaquarium.org

 Ybor City Historic District
www.ybor.org

Bok Tower Gardens
www.boktowergardens.org

Kennedy Space Center
www.kennedyspacecenter.com

Chihuly Collection
www.moreanartscenter.org

St. Pete Beach
www.stpetebeach.com

Tarpon Springs Sponge Docks
www.spongedocks.net

Sea World
www.seaworldparks.com

Disney World
www.disneyworld.disney.go.com

Epcot
www.disneyworld.disney.go.com/parks/epcot/

Universal Studios
www.universalorlando.com

I recently read Mike Sares’ newsletter for December and he brought up the church calendar, Advent in particular.

I like his reference to Isaiah and festival keeping and it’s one of the things I like about the church calendar. It presses us to focus on the things that truly shape our worship—–like the Incarnation, and the Resurrection, and the outpouring of the Spirit as the new covenant community is launched on its mission. Advent and Lent are preparation times to re-engage these central truths and the Realities that they hearken once again.

Mike has been pastoring the Scum of the Earth Church (SOTEC) for about a decade. Most of you know the story out there but might not know Mike as well. He is one of the most human leaders that I have had the privilege to know. And he is incredibly generous. Two stories come to mind. The first occurred during a Phil Keaggy concert inDenverwhere Mike arranged to give a gift to his departing worship leader, Deva Yoder. It was a very expensive guitar that Mike also arranged to have Mr. Keaggy play during his set on stage and then dedicate the song (I believe it was the Beatle’s “Here Comes the Sun”) and the guitar to Deva. Further he worked it out that between sets, Phil would present the guitar to Deva. Really, all very charming and honoring. But what I loved the most was watching the delight that was unfolding in Mike as he arranged all of this. It was a lot of work and quite expensive but he was perfectly childlike in his anticipation of the delight of another. It seemed to me that this was part of what Jesus meant when He called us to embrace the kingdom like children. Mike did it beautifully.

The second story had to do with Gothic Nathan, who Mike called the best evangelist at Scum despite his struggles with his own humanity. I was in the car as Mike was giving Nathan a ride home (wherever that happened to be at that time) and Nathan was enthusiastically trying to engage me in the merits of techno music. Not a big fan and Nathan didn’t pick up my cluelessness. And he wouldn’t stop even when we got to his drop off spot. And Mike wouldn’t “rescue” the situation but patiently let Nathan go on….and on. And I finally got it. This was a piece of Mike’s pastoral generosity and I was getting a much needed lesson in grace.

Finally, if you haven’t yet read Pure Scum, it’s worth your time. It will soften your heart with grace and you can hear a lot more stories of generosity.

Here’s Mike Sares. Listen to his Advent encouragement.
Ned

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Isaiah 30:29 And you will sing as on the night you celebrate a holy festival; your hearts will rejoice as when people go up with flutes to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are about taking time out to celebrate God’s goodness to us. In one sense, we shouldn’t have to set aside special times during the year – we should always be grateful – but that’s simply not the case, so we mark our calendars to remember. We have begun, for several years now, to celebrate Advent as a rule at Scum of the Earth. We need to meditate upon the awesome wonder of God becoming one of us since we all are people infected by a consumeristic culture. God went to great lengths in order to secure Jesus a place in our hearts. It is almost impossible to get away from the busyness and commerce which surround the holidays. We’d have to live like monks or like the Amish. The best we can do is to focus on the important stuff within the church so that, in at least one community, we are not bowing to the culture.

The church has got to be the place where (or rather, the church has got to be people who believe that) God is the heart of the holiday season. We can’t expect that from anywhere else on the planet. It is our responsibility to remind each other what the holidays really mean – and I’m not talking about some sanitized version of Thanksgiving (for example) that whitewashes the terrible way the government has dealt historically with native Americans. That first Thanksgiving may have been us at our best. Nor am I talking about Christmas being the time of year when we are “not naughty, but nice.” It is imperative to be brutally honest in our view of ourselves if we are ever to have an honest view of God’s goodness at holiday time. We are thankful because He loves us in spite of the fact that He knows us – what we’ve done and left undone.

So celebrate the season within the context of community. Celebrate with your church, with your friends, or with other families who know that Jesus is the Heart of the Holidays. Better yet, become the community that celebrates God’s goodness with someone who has no community at holiday time. Help the helpless, feed the homeless, and befriend the friendless for the time we have left this year.

In Him,

The 2012 ARC Annual Conference will be held April 20-21 at Grace Church in Toledo, Ohio.

Get all the details, including a registration link, workshop list, conference schedule and more HERE.

Rick Widener just informed me that I have spent 30 of the past 60 days in Ohio. And though I appreciate many things about the great state of Ohio, I am very glad to be home in Minnesota.

Much of my time in Ohiowas spent with Grace Fellowship Church in Mansfield, which is sorting through a tough season of leadership change. A year ago, GFC had 3 new elders and a new pastor/presiding elder. It would be both improper and impossible to go through all the details here, but suffice it to say that there were no moral indiscretions on anyone’s part. Waylon and Natalie Clemmons and family have moved to Berea, Kentucky to work with a Vineyard Church there. Though it was very difficult for both the Clemmons’ and GFC, I am satisfied with the process that occurred in this parting of ways. Very sad, but satisfied with the way folks handled themselves in challenging circumstances. But would you lift a few prayers for the following?

1. The Clemmons family as they re-situate inKentucky
2. The GFC family as they re-engage God and each other on the other side of this distress
3. The GFC elders (Matt Godsil, Tom Russell and Steve McKee) as they lead GFC through this season

While in Ohio, I also was able to lead 2 mini-conferences (in Elyria and Findlay), a men’s retreat for Grace Church in Toledo, meet with leaders from 7 of the 8 ARC churches in Ohio and preach 4 Sunday sermons. I was also able to meet with a leadership team from Dayton that is interested in affiliation with the ARC through connection with Greg Weis, who pastors Grace Christian Fellowship in Dayton.

We are now in the process of serious planning for both a mini-conference in Florida at Tampa Covenant Church (Eric Meyer and Lou Kaloger) in conjunction with Faith Farm (Jim Benton) on February 3-4. They would love to have a host of northerners drop in for that time, and I’m guessing a lot of northerners would be happy to be in Tampa in January. So save your pennies, folks, and let’s see if we can get a good crew down there for that time.

The ARC Annual Conference will again be at Grace Church in Toledo on April 20-21, and the focus will be on the larger matter of making disciples with a specific emphasis on the heart of worship in an individual believer. This is the specific direction we feel we’ve been given and we are aiming to press this out with purpose. We are also sustaining determination to flesh out a previous word regarding making adjustments in the 3 G’s—Gifts, Generations and Gender. Consequently, several workshops will be done by some of our stellar and under-deployed women and teachers from the younger generation. And though this is not yet finalized, I am hoping to have as our plenary speaker one of the best teacher/preachers in Minnesota over the past 3 decades. And if he can make it, it will be a serious blessing to your heart and mind regarding this matter of worship and discipleship.

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving celebration. I am so profoundly thankful for my family and for the very institution of marriage and family.

Blessings on you and yours,
Ned

We did the seminars in Elyria and Findlay, OH and Spooner, WI. The mini-conference in Spooner included workshops on worship with our finances, worship in our homes, corporate worship, the call to worship via baptism and the Lord’s Table and the continuing worship in ongoing sanctification. I was deeply gratified by the offerings of many. Getting down to the core elements of disciple making is a foundational piece that we dare not neglect.

We’ll do a similar mini-conference in Tampa, Florida in January with Tampa Covenant Church pastored by Eric Meyer and Lou Kaloger and Faith Farm, pastored by Jim Benton from Okechobee. This would be a great opportunity for all you northerners to escape the deep freeze for a bit, thaw out, and return to the tundra with renewed vigor to make warm disciples of Jesus. Consider it, won’t you? It’ll be on the weekend of January 20-22. Eric has promised warm weather and a free trip to Disney World for the first 500 that sign up. Was that how you said it, Eric? I’ll check with Eric and get back to you all on that.

On a more sober note, I would like to enlist prayer for Grace Fellowship Church in Mansfield. Waylon Clemmons, who was installed a year ago as pastor there, has resigned and though I can’t go into details now, it has nothing to do with financial or sexual sin but is more complex. I hope to be able to give greater clarity in the future. Suffice it to say for now that everybody is in some level of pain over this. So please pray for the Clemmons family as they move on and for GFC as they seek to do the same. The elders at GFC are Matt Godsil, Tom Russell and Steve McKee. They have been faithful and pastoral in a difficult path. So for the Clemmons, the GFC elders and the GFC church family, pray and ask God for His paternal care that is our portion in Jesus.

Peace,
Ned

I would like to take this time to introduce to you a newly established ministry that I have undertaken in our colonia in Mexico.   We continue our work 10 miles outside Tecate, Mexico and have begun working with a group of recovering addicts that have a desire to know the Lord Jesus Christ.

In April of 2011, I met Humberto, who introduced himself as Robert.  Over the following months we began to meet regularly.  Through this process he gave his life to Christ.  At that time he was serving as the director of a rehabilitation center for the organization El Meson.  El Meson has five other locations between Tecate, Florido, Ensenada, Rosorito and Tijuana, Mexico.  The organization wanted to start a new center in our colonia.  A gentleman in Tecate donated land for the use of establishing this  center.  An adjoining property with housing was also to be used by the members of the rehabilitation center.  A verbal agreement was given that free use of the property was permissible for the time span of five years with the condition that the men completed some major construction projects.  In compliance with this agreement, the members of the center completed numerous projects.

It was later discovered the owner of the property has a negative reputation for his dealings with people.  Beginning in July, the property owner, Miguel, began to raise the subject of possibly selling the property the rehabilitation members were occupying.  This caused a major source of instability for the group.  During this process I had conversations with Robert.  He expressed at that time that he felt God wanted him to remain in this community.  Robert directed the center in the fashion of a half-way house.  Robert invited some other members in the center to attend church, and they also began to come to Christ.  At that I told him if anything should happen at the property of El Meson, I could assist them in relocating to a property of the church, Hosanna.  I also expressed an interest in establishing a Christian half-way house in our colonia.  I believe this type of ministry is greatly needed.

On September 1st, the founder of El Meson met with the property owner, Miguel.  Communication broke down and an agreement was not reached.  The men were ordered to immediately leave.  The founder of El Meson ordered the men to pack and relocate at one of the other centers.  Robert decided in that moment to stay in our colonia.  Six of the other men expressed the same sentiment as Robert.  At 3:00 in the afternoon, the men began to pack and we moved their belongings to one of my properties.  The slept in the House of Prayer that night.  The next morning, Friday, I called the mayor of our colonia, George Cortez, who is also a personal friend.  I asked if he could stop by my house for a meeting.

George came by that morning.  I wanted to find out if the men had any legal recourse to continue occupying the original property.  George informed us that there was very little recourse.  The founder of El Meson would need to contract a lawyer.  When Robert and his men expressed the desire to remain in our colonia, the founder decided to withdraw all support of the group.  Due to permits and legal requirements, George informed us to not refer to the group as a rehabilitation center.  The group was to be referred to as a retreat center.  George volunteered the use of his facilities which included a house equipped with electricity, a kitchen and an outhouse.  The men agreed to relocate once again and moved into George’s property that morning.  (This house requires some immediate repairs such as replacing all of the broken windows, repairing the leaking roof, and rewiring the faulty electric cables.)

On the following Monday, I met with George to ask him how much time we would have to use the property.  He gave us a time frame of 3 to 6 months, depending on the sale of his auto parts business.  He assured us a 3 month notice of eviction would be given regardless the circumstances.  Once the sale of his business was finalized, he planned to tear down the facility in order to build a tire and mechanic shop.  ( Which would never work here in this area.)  I asked him if he was willing to sell us the facility.  He had offered to sell the property at $18,000 to a friend of his earlier in the year.  I asked him what he would take as a down payment and monthly installments.  He said $8,000 down payment and $500 per month.  To raise $500 per month would be very difficult.  I said that over the next six months I plan on raising the entire sum ($18,000) and buy the property.  He was surprised, but agreeable.  He said that if this is what God wants he is all for it.  (George is a Christian and pastors a church in El Florido, Mexico.)

Here I am, needing help to secure this property in order to provide a place to help recovering addicts and alcoholics.  A half-way house is a location that the men come to from a rehabilitation center.  They are reintegrated into society, having rules and regulations to protect them.  This means they have daily meetings, work in the community to help fund living expenses in the house.  I have a list of needs besides buying the property.

In 2007, I established a non-profit  organization in Mexico which cost $2,500.  I had to get caught up on legal documents and I still need to file them with the State and Municipal government.  My current paperwork is established through the federal branch of government.  That will be added cost totaling approximately $700.  This is the time to complete the state and municipal requirements because George, working in the political realm which currently leads the local seat of government, will facilitate my requests being approved very easily.  Attached is a comprehensive list of the immediate needs and photographs.

I am looking for champions who will come along side and help to get out the needs that we have.  If we get a lot of people to help, there will be no great burden on any one individual.   Thank you for your consideration and prayer concerning these needs.  Please, continue to lift up this group of men in your prayers.

If you have any further questions or concerns, you can call me at anytime at (619) 756-3004.  Please be aware of the fact that we are in Pacific Standard time zone.  If I do not answer, please leave a message.  I will call you back the same day.  My phone has limited signal range in our town, but I check messages regularly and return calls faithfully.

Sincerely,

Arthur E. Hackett, Sr.

LaFamily Ministries & Tecate House of Prayer

On the day of Pentecost, 10 days after the ascension of Jesus, God Almighty poured out the third Person of the Trinity on 120 praying believers. The new covenant realities were now in full motion. God was now indwelling those who had put their faith in Jesus. One of the immediate results of this divine impartation was the almost comical scene of 120 largely uneducated Jews preaching the gospel in languages they had never studied. They were accused of being drunk and it isn’t clear that they had any understanding of the message they were delivering. God fearers from many nations were inJerusalemfor this feast of First Fruits and 3000 of them were on the verge of becoming the first fruits of the new covenant cut in the flesh of the Lamb of God and sealed by His resurrection from the dead.

Peter preached a 2 part sermon on that day. Part one consisted of 22 verses in the Bible. It takes 2 minutes and 22 seconds to read that. And the result of that 2 minute sermon was the spiritual fact that 3000 folk were cut to the heart and believed. And following that, Peter went on: “And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them saying, ‘ Save your selves from this crooked generation’ ” ( Acts 2:40 )

However marvelous this event was, it’s what followed that I’d like you to pay attention to today. These believers became worshipers, devoted worshipers, who ordered their daily live around 4 priorities:

1. the apostle’s teaching, the Word of God
2. fellowship with other believers
3. the breaking of bread, a reference to the Lord’s Table, the center of their corporate worship
4. the prayers, and without doubt, corporate prayer

Three of the 4 of these “devoted priorities” had to do with worship. They were orienting their lives around God, being helped at all times by the Holy Spirit, and experiencing the living reality of the risen Christ and seeing His continuing mission on the earth being played out through their lives. The rest, as they say, is history.

But this event was never meant to be mere interesting history. These words were written down for us to show us the path of life. It hinges on Jesus who is calling us to the very same devotions and priorities and, yes, to similar expressions of fruitfulness in our churches and cities.

To those of you who are leading the flock of God, take heed. We are called to make disciples, followers of Jesus, who are exhibiting these same priorities. To those of you who are following Jesus and your leaders, take heed. God calls you to these devotions as surely as He did 2000 years ago. Disciples are made this way and the fruit of Jesus and this powerful gospel are the expected results of that path.

Be encouraged. Jesus said He would be with us to the end of the age to get this great mission accomplished. Let’s lean more deliberately in that direction.

Peace and blessing,

Ned

This first year we will focus on worship, more on the personal devotion of the individual believer rather than corporate worship. The Fall and Winter mini-conferences will emphasize this crucial piece. However, month by month I will address any of these 5 areas. This month I’d like to have you think with me regarding Community.

I’m actually writing this on the 2nd to last day of our family summer cabin trip. We’ve gone to the same cabin for the past 20 years and it amounts to a wonderful expression of food, family and fun. We had all 6 kids up with their 3 spouses, 5 grandchildren and 1 girlfriend. Excellent time on multiple levels. It was and is the kind of community that sustains healthy community which is so crucial for the kind of life that God has made us to live

While up at the cabin I read an amazing book that I highly recommend. It’s not a Christian book and some of the language is a tad earthy but there are few books I’ve read that capture the essence of the human struggle better than this one. Michael Perry penned Population: 485 nine years ago, but it was only a few weeks ago that Pat Kahnke, the pastor of St Paul Fellowship, thought I might like to read his copy. He turned it over to me with glowing accolades. And he was absolutely correct. Pat is a writer himself and marks this as one of the best pieces of non-fiction he’s read. Me too.

Perry is writing about life in New Auburn, Wisconsin. You guessed it—pop. 485. I lived 1/2 hour from New Auburn back in the late 70s when I taught at a discipleship school. We lived on Potato Lake on County Road “D”. After those 4 years we moved to Spooner, Wis ( pop. 2500 ) for the next 6 years. New Auburn would be just about an even experience on either side of Potato Lake and Spooner. Small towns typically suffer from an inbred parochialism but listen to Michael Perry get after the matter of “belonging” in a chapter entitled “My People”:

“It seems to me that the globalization of human experience via everything from satellite feeds to online kipper boutiques is good news to the extent that even the most reclusive among us receive daily updates on the complications of the human condition. There was a time when ignorance–and the prejudice it fostered–could be grossly excused as result of cultural or geographical isolation. Nowadays, ignorance must be willfully tended, like a stumpy mushroom under a bucket. Light is hitting more and more of the earth. Trouble thrives, but more and more humans share a general sense of life as it is on this spinning rock, and that is due, in part, to the war correspondent in Kabul, The Food Network, and lesbian chat rooms.

The trouble is–and this is not a complaint but a report–the world has our attention in a million ways it never did before, and we find it tougher and tougher to focus our loyalties. Tougher to know how to belong, or to want to belong.. Individual freedom is essential to the human spirit, and a theoretical individualism makes for cool Nike commercials, but sometimes you have to team up. To fight a fire , for instance, I love–the word is not too strong–the idea of neighbors coming together to put out fires, and I’m thrilled to be part of that effort when I am called. It feels good. It feels right. It feels like I belong. Sometimes you find yourself looking for little commonalities. Go Packers.”

Perry found community in little New Auburn and though it may not be the perfect expression of the Divine, it did strike a very resonant chord in his life.

We were made for community because we are made in the Image of God, the eternal community of Father, Son and Spirit. Every attempt at long term isolation is doomed to this failure–it can never produce the Image of God that I was created to be and express. We must belong to each other and belong intimately and sacrificially. Intentional and deliberate community is a key element in what it takes to build healthy and fruitful disciples

Blessings on the rest of your summer. I’ll see many of you this fall and I’ll be looking forward to it!
Ned

• Worship
• Community
• Outreach
• Marriage and Family
• Leadership Development

We’re not working out of some grand master scheme but are quite certain that we have heard from the Spirit and are gearing up to “go boldly into that dark night where others have feared to go” How’s that for a bad melding of Dylan Thomas and Star Trek?. But in all seriousness, this is a great opportunity to put feet to our 3 Gs mantra of the past 5 years (Gifts, Gender and Generations). I have been overseeing the ARC now for 10 years along with the MMC. I think I should be out of this position before this next 10 years is up but I am hoping to be fully engaged to this 10 year plan no matter what position I hold.

These 5 areas, of course, bleed into each other but we must clarify, teach and train in all of them with specifics related to our present culture and its inherent challenges. Our plan is to do Fall and Winter mini-conferences that lead into our annual conference in Toledo. During these conferences, I would also like to sit down with local leaders and sort through these 5 areas and collectively determine the best route to achieve our objectives

Presently we are conceiving of 5 locations for these mini-conferences:

• Ohio/Michigan
• New Jersey/New England
• Minnesota/Wisconsin
• Florida
• Denver/Seattle

I haven’t forgotten about Brazil, Poland and Mexico but I am unsure of exactly how to pull this off and I need to meet with leaders from these 3 countries to determine their needs more precisely

The impetus for all of this, I believe, is this ongoing call to make disciples. These 5 areas are at the center of that calling. So, in effect, we will be seeking to keep the first things first.

More to come on all of this. It’s a meat and potatoes approach. Nothing very spicy here but it’s the stuff that will cause us to stay on track and grow into yet more fruitful branches.

Peace and blessing to all of you,
Ned